notnafnaf and Portia it's sad to hear about your sisters. At least mine doesn't berate my kid! My SIL has a gifted son, but he's at a different level than my DS, and she thinks the same as her parents, that we are pushing him. We have very different parenting styles and now I just don't say anything. Her kids spend an enormous amount of time playing video games. They have serious entitlement issues. I also witnessed her 8 year old receive a brain puzzle for Christmas and instead of happily digging into it he secretly looked at the answer (my DH and I witnessed this), solved it and told everyone he did it in a manner of minutes. Very sad that he feels he needs to prove himself in that way and is not enjoying the journey. Yet, in our in-laws eyes we are the parents who need chill out. Jeez! Sorry for the rant!
One last tidbit. Upon entering my DS room, when visiting, my MIL noticed his vast collection of board games and enormous amounts of Lego and Snap Circuits projects in process. She looked at my DH and said, "That's a lot of stuff out. Aren't they only supposed to have 5 age appropriate toys out at a time?"
